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Anxiety: nothing’s changed there then

It’s been about half a year since I wrote my last blog about anxiety. And whilst I’d like to say something has changed, nothing has (besides five or six months passing in the blink of an eye – where did Christmas go?!)

I was overwhelmed by the number of views on my last post, and I got a few lovely messages both from people I know and people I don’t know. I am still immensely grateful for those.

Sometimes I feel as if I talk about my problems too much, sometimes I feel as if I don’t talk about them enough but mostly I feel as if I’m annoying people with them. When I tweet about anxiety, I pretty much always delete the tweet within minutes, if not seconds, for fear of annoying people. It’s either that or my huge fear of not getting any likes or retweets and denting my fragile ego. But even now as I write this blog, I am very much considering not posting it in case me sharing it does somebody’s head in. That’s probably why it’s taken me so long to update, not that there is much to update.

That’s also the reason, I guess, when most of the time I feel as if there’s nobody to talk to. I have some great friends, and some not so great, but I don’t want to overwhelm them with my issues when they have their own, more substantial ones. Mine seem pathetic in comparison. This just leads to a lot of things building up in my head, more struggle and a difficulty to deal with emotions.

Beyond the physical anxiety symptoms giving me health anxiety as I mentioned last time, I’m beginning to think if everything that goes with this isn’t helping me out much either. I’m a large guy, I joke about that. With my heart condition, I’m strongly advised not to exert myself which meant I didn’t do PE in school and have not exercised a lot since. I’ve lost weight before, I lost a couple of stone last year, and I’d like to lose some more. But it’s hard for that reason – it feels, to me, like I essentially have to starve myself to make up for the lack of exercise. My appearance, I think, is a strong contributor to why I struggle to make interactions with people at first instance – I feel inferior, although I am not, and I feel like I am being judged, although I am probably not. I want to be like other people…but do I? No, probably not. I like me…sometimes…not often. This doesn’t make much sense really, does it? Try living it.

I got a couple of questions after my last blog from people who didn’t ‘get it’. That’s fine. I don’t get it either. I just know it’s real. A couple of them were mainly about ‘why’ I do what I do, and to be quite honest I don’t know. I guess that sounds ludicrous. But that’s how it is. Everything that anxiety causes me to do feels beyond my control.

I try to talk to people, I feel like I’m being ignored. I’m probably not. I’m probably just not trying hard enough. I can be funny, I’ve been told that I’m pretty funny. But I can’t do ‘me’ until I’m very comfortable with someone and right now, I’m finding it very hard to get to that point with anyone new, as much as I really want to. When certain people like my Facebook posts, my tweets, my Instagram photos, I get ridiculously happy. That’s pathetic, right? It shouldn’t make me so happy. It’s only a ‘like’, what does it mean? Nothing. ‘Talk to them,’ ‘Talk to her’, blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah. Shut up. No. I can’t. I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack if I try. It cripples me. Still not making much sense? Nope, not to me either. I get angry with myself, I continue to struggle with any emotions I may be developing, I get chest pains, I feel like I’m going to die, I blame my weight, I blame myself, I blame my genes, I get angry with myself again and the whole thing loops. I feel like I’m not good enough.

I DON’T KNOW WHAT FEELINGS ARE. WHAT ARE FEELINGS?

Cliche as it sounds, there was a time when I was determined 2018 would be the year I’d overcome my anxiety and sort myself out, but there’s one thing standing in the way of that…anxiety itself. We’ll see how it goes. Not very far, I imagine.

I found a lovely gif from Peep Show which pretty much sums up my mindset every morning:

I’m on Twitter @sirdanielmeyer if you want to chat about anything. I’m more than happy to answer any questions.

Apologies if this felt out of order or a bit erratic. I just wrote things as they came to me.